


Untitled

by SerpentsKiss



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:32:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentsKiss/pseuds/SerpentsKiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes trust doesn't come all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

It was hell being a spy who couldn’t resist keeping a journal. She’d tried at first, truly she had. The words just bubbled up in her, causing a tension that even hostile interrogation couldn’t bring up in her. Then she’d tried writing and burning the paper, only to find that the anxiety worsened. It seemed as though burning it meant she might lose the memories, and that terrified a part of her so deeply that she had to come up with something else very quickly.

A cipher seemed to be the key. She made her own, of course, one so detailed and personal that an enemy would have to break her to break it. She defended it and the journals with fierce secrecy, not confessing the habit even to those close to her. What no one knew couldn’t hurt you, after all.

The first time Steve caught her writing, she froze up. Freezing for her, of course, was simply showing no outward sign of anything being wrong. She just easily closed the book and began to sit up and Steve, who had been about to say something along the lines of “I didn’t know you wrote,” changed it on the fly to, “can I draw with you?”

He knew at once by the way the tension went out of her tightly coiled body that he’d said the right thing. It was a small thing, something only a lover might notice, but they’d been lovers for a long time now and he knew her. She rewarded him with a smile and opened her journal again, and he took that for the assent it was and went to get his pencils.

When they’d been sitting in comfortable silence for some time, Steve murmured, “I’d never try to read it.”

There was a pause, then Natasha looked at him over the page. “You couldn’t,” She said bluntly. “I made the cipher.”

Silence fell again for a moment, with the two regarding each other over their work. Steve broke it first.

"Will you teach me -"

Natasha’s heart sank. Not because she wouldn’t refuse, but because she hated to refuse Steve anything. He asked for so little, yet she would never give him this. She bit down lightly on the inside of her cheek, thinking how to word this, then realized he was looking expectant. “- Sorry?”

He responded patiently. “Will you teach me how to make a cipher?”

That set her back a second. Then she smiled at him and sat up, turning to nudge his sketchbook out of the way and settle against his chest.

"Yes," she said agreeably. "But not now. I’m writing."

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted to my tumblr, flamesofeden. A companion to The Devil and In The Details.


End file.
